NC State Football Preview 2025: Can Dave Doeren and the Wolfpack Finally Win 10 Games?

X CFN, Fiu | CFN Facebook | Bluesky Fiu, CFN 

NC State Offense Breakdown
NC State Defense Breakdown
Season Prediction, Win Total, Keys to Season

Even weirder, the school first started playing college football in 1892, and it still has just one double-digit winning season, going 11-3 in 2002.

SMU is one-for-one as a double-digit winning ACC school.

The program continues to be solid under Dave Doeren, with a team and schedule that were both good enough to have produced something fantastic. Instead, injuries were an issue, the lines struggled, and …

There’s a positive in all of this. The fundamentals of the NC State football program are strong.

Doeren hasn’t stopped being a great college football coach. The lumps taken last year should pay off with a more experienced team, and with a great young group of reserves waiting in the wings.

And the schedule isn’t that bad - several Big Ten and SEC schools could only dream of having a slate like the Wolfpack will enjoy.

Yes, one play here and there is what it’s all about, but four of the seven losses were by one score, a fifth against Duke was tight into the final few minutes, and the two others against Tennessee and Clemson were blowouts against College Football Playoff teams.

But again, if SMU was able to figure it out and put together a special season, NC State can do it, too.

It’s way overdue to catch the right breaks, with four nine-win seasons and two eight-win campaigns in the last eight years. And it should be good enough to create its own good luck.

So even if it would be nice for NC State to do a little more, over the 12 years under Doeren, assume eight or nine wins are coming, and you’ll probably be right. 

NC State Offense Breakdown
NC State Defense Breakdown
Season Prediction, Win Total, Keys to Season